When I was pregnant, I new from an amnio that I was having a girl very early on. I picked out several names, and my hubby (at the time) would disagree, Gabriella (aka Gabby, which in retrospect would have been PERFECT), Zoey (the name she wishes she had), Emily (no his sister had picked that name but had a boy, what if she got pregnant again... and yes she did and her name is Emily). Somewhere out of the blue the simple name Tara Leigh came to me, and that is what stuck!

If it would have been a boy, He, wanted ROCKET (over my dead body!)

Stop by Jen, I have something for you.http://thedailygrindbymak.blogspot.com/2009/04/award-x2.html

When I was pregnant the 1st time, my hubby & I agreed on a boy name right off the bat... Jakob Harrison. Of course, we promprtly found out we were having a girl. It took MONTHS to agree on a name... and we finally decided on Hannah.

The 2nd time I got pregnant, we knew the boy name... and of course, we learned we were having another girl! This time, we just could not agree on a name... I was in the hospital thinking about the name Madeline. But hubby has a weird thing about nicknames, and he didn't want her to be called Maddie. So it wasn't until the next day we came up with the name Michaela for her!

No funny names here. Just Ashlee. But, I spelled it different since my ex picked it, and it was one of the more popular names that year. However there are many Ashley's with "EE" now. Sigh. Some of those celebreties drive me nuts with their names... Like Apple, and Moses. C'mon.

Our criteria for names was:Nothing too common so s/he'd avoid being "Sam R" or whatever in school, but nothing that would cause people to reel back and think "WTF Kid, what were your parents SMOKING?!"

My partner HATED the name I'd spent years dreaming of giving to my little girl. We'd finally agreed on a name for a boy, that he wanted to double up on and use for a girl too (it was a unisex name. We didn't know what we were having), but were still having friendly arguments about what we'd call a daughter.

Little Aloysius Adventure Splodge ended up having boy-shaped bits, and didn't look like a Byron, so Morgan Bryce he is and was, five minutes after being extracted from my body.

We like timeless (as I call them) names. Isabelle and Natalie. And we didn't find out the sex until they were born, but they already had names. It's a girl...and they were immediately named. And, of course, it fits.

And, we didn't tell people the names we picked out until they were here for the very same reason "reece" was vetoed.

Hey! My new little baby girl is "Reece." When we told my mom, she loved it. When we told my dad, he said, "Reece? That's a MAN'S name. You need to name her something proper and lovely and cordial." Eh... we stayed with Reece.

I can't say but BG's name I get some questions about and it annoys the heck out of me. I swear it is not unusual or strange just makes people question why. lol, I am rambling. LM's name totally normal.

I love naming babies!! (mine or other's) We always tried a somewhat "cool" name with a "regular" name so if they hated it when they got older, they could go by the one they liked. Our daughter is Meagan Kalee (named after my mom, Kay), John David (okay, nothing weird here except he goes by both names), Trevor Joseph (after my dad), Lynee Claire (we adopted her when she was 17 months and was named Linda-so we just tweaked it a little), and Cooper Jack (named after a dear family friend's last name and an uncle). My greatest advice is to yell the name you have chosen out the back door over and over and if you still like it, use it.

I am a HUGE fan of NOT telling people the names you're thinking of until you have the baby... I too didn't want to hear if people didn't like a name I was thinking - and once they're born and you announce it, it's too late to change them.

We didn't (and don't) know the sex of the first two - or the one we're having in 2 ish weeks. With the first two, I had such boy feelings that we never discussed girls names until we got to the hospital... and they were "just in case" names. It took me a YEAR to get used to my 1st daughter's name... Riley Sloane. My youngest (for now) is named Sheridan Reese - and boy did my FIL think it was weird...

This one? Well we have names chosen - and I can't wait to reveal one of them soon!!

Nothing unique about my daughter's name. Hubby and I came up with a boy name in a snap (Joshua John - Joshua because we both liked it and John because it's a family name) but we went back and forth for months on the girl name (and we just happened to have a girl). I read the name Jenna in a magazine article when I was waiting at the doctor's office and I really liked it. Mentioned it to the hubby and he liked it, too. Success! Now, for the middle name. I wanted Kathryn, which is my mom's name. He wanted something more trendy. We fought about it until I was in labor. When he saw the numbers keep going up on the contraction monitor, he looked at me and said, "Name her whatever you want." So, Jenna Kathryn it was. Suits her perfectly! Although, we call her Bug much more often than we call her Jenna.

Each one of my girls was going to be Maggie.....for Mike's grandmother.....but we would change our minds at the last minute. We finally named the third one Maggie.....it really wouldn't have fit the others.

We didn't tell our second child's name until she was born because we got so sick of hearing the first one's before she was born.

Okay, laying it all out there, I don't think I've ever posted my kids' full names, but we really love the ones we chose, well, my husband did most of that work.Aria Melody Sara"an aria is the most important part of an opera or music piece" followed by my mom's name, and my friend who cut the cord!Maximus Defenderseriously, how cool is that?Piper MorganMorgan is dad's middle, and HIS dad's first nameJackson CreedCreed was last minute, we both just looked at eachother and knew we loved it!I think my hubby wants more kids just so he can name them. I said unless we win the lottery, he'd better start naming pets instead!!

It was 1997, and we searched every babyname book for it, and didn't find it on any top 100 list. "AWESOME" we thought, thinking we had something truly original. We used it, and for a while everyone thought it was cool and unique.

then sex and the city came along and TOTALLY screwed it up.

Yup, my son's name is Aidan, and it has been in the top 3 names for the last 5-10 years. So much for good intentions.

My husband and I are expecting our first child, and we just found out 2 weeks ago that it's a girl. Her name will be Dallas Julia. Those names are not unheard of -- but they're unusual enough that once told everyone we kept getting asked how and why we picked that name. Our answer is that we just like it! It is so fun, now, to call her by her name instead of just saying "the baby" all the time.

Java?! What the hell?? What if this kid grows up and hates coffee??? Then what? I see much $$ being spent on therapy in its future...

My kids' names: Michaela and Dain. Michaela: named after I was flipping channels and stopped at Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman, and heard that name. Loved it immediately.Dain: We had a hard time picking a name for our soon-to-be son, and my hubby one day jokingly said "Dain" after one of the characters in a book. And I loved it!

My girls got stuck with very popular names. Emily & Olivia. I didn't mean for them to be popular. Emily was a name that my Mom had picked out for my younger brother, when she thought he was going to be a girl... surprise! He was her last baby, so in honor of that situation, I choose that name for our little girl. And it fits perfect.

I got Olivia from watching a Lifetime movie, lol. For some reason I just loved that name... again, it fits perfectly!

Just popped by from "Welcome to the Nuthouse". My daughters are Rhiannon and Layla. Rhiannon is from a Fleetwood Mac song, I have met 2 other Rhiannon's since having her 7 years ago. Layla is from an Eric Clapton song. I have heard this one plenty of times, but still not common enough that there will be 4 in her class when she gets to school!

My 1st son was named before birth after his dad, although we were iffy on the middle name (WHAT WAS MIL THINKING??). Christopher

2nd son I named with no input from Hubs. Cameron

My daughter didn't have a name the first 2 days of her life. We couldn't really agree. I'd chosen Kennedy a few months before, changed my mind and decided to keep it 2 hours before we left the hospital.

Wanted my children to have normal names that they could spell when they get in school and names that they could get a JOB with....

I have an unusual name. Dejoni...pronounced like Deshona. I was named after a town in France, Dijon. All I have to say is my mother was weird and it has been a blessing and a curse. It's always been a great conversation starter but it's also been misprounced and mispelled.I have two girls and gave them normal names, Rachel and Ella.

My husband and I have very common first names and hated being one of 2 or 3 Michelle's in my class. I have been surrounded my Michelle's my whole life and while I like my name it gets confusing. I like the cutesy but somewhat unique names. My husband likes the very unique names.

Genevieve - not a name you hear everyday, or that 18 other girls in the kindergarten class will have - but a real traditional name that will look good on a business card anyway. Genevieve was the patron saint of Paris.

We didn't find out what we were having but my heart said it was a boy. When the doctor said, "It's a girl," I was sure he was wrong. We had fiddled with Natalee for a girl & kept it when out she came! She was born 2 wks before Christmas and Natalee means, "Gift at Christmas." I love the meanings of names--that's how we narrowed down our whole list when we were picking...based on what they meant!

we used all biblical names. actually all appear in the old testament. but my favorite boy name is joshua. and i have four sons. none of them are named joshua. instead we have seth, gabriel (our angel boy after two years of trying and two miscarriages), nathan and eli...

I'm like you....we names our kiddos the second we find out what sex they are ... I'm impatient like that. One more thing off my plate. :) We went with pretty normal first names ... Benjamin and (soon to be) Noah with the dreaded family name given as the middle name. If we were to have a girl I LOVED the name Amelia, so one day when we get a dog that'll be her name. 8) I'm a planner.

I just knew I was having a boy, so I didn't pick out a girl name until after she was born. My mom picked one of the names... Taylor... and her father and I were to pick the other. At first we went with Taylor Chantel, but then her dad called and had it changed when she was 4 hours old to Denisha Taylor... named after her mama... Denise. It's funny. My mama is Dee, I'm Denise, and the eldest spawn is Denisha.

With my first, we did have a name picked out for a boy and a girl--then a week before he was born the name changed for a boy--from Ian Gregory to Zachary Ian. He was a boy and Zachary Ian it was--and it very much suits him.

With our second, we knew if it was a girl it would be Zoe. For a boy, we had NO clue--even on the day she was born--we were lucky she was a girl or she would have had no name. Her middle name is Fiona--that one hubby picked out--I wasn't sure about it, but he was gone when I was filling out the birth certificate and I still put it in. Almost 8 years later and I cannot for the life of me remember what I wanted for her middle name.

Third time around--would be Zane if a boy, if a girl the middle name would be Ione (my grandmother's middle name), but we had no clue for a first name for a girl that started with a Z. We fought and then figured we both thought we were having another boy. Luckily, we did find out about 6 weeks ahead of time so that we could come up with a name--Zach is the one that finally came up with Zienna. A bit unusual, but fits her perfectly.

We didn't name our new baby girl (anna, born 4.21) for the first 12 hours or so, just to make sure Anna really fit, and to make sure we weren't making the decision when we were so exhausted. Julia & Eva we named right away - and I love all of their names :)